Time Traveler HOVA Meets the Vampire Nicholai Cage: Tides of War

Time Traveler HOVA: Tides of War - II

Nikolai guided us through a series of small copses, the soft fog of early morning clinging to the ground.  We came upon a small farm where, after a few brief words, the farmer provided us two workhorses.  They would have easily dwarfed the biggest of NYC's equestrian police force.  These were righteous bitches to stay on: their girth made it impossible to get my legs comfortably positioned.  I had to constantly adjust my weight left and right.

"Take off your coat and sit on that," offered the vampire.  "It won't be any easier since we have five miles to go."

I grunted at the statement.  I knew that he could have flown back, yet he was doing this for me.  He seemed much bigger in this age, sitting straight up on his horse with his arms folded.  Despite the popular fiction: they could aging.  Nikolai was lost in thought.  It was only interrupted when he took out a hat from the folds of his cape.  He put on gloves.  The sun was about to break through the clouds, "I'll trust you won't kill me where I am most vulnerable."

"Nikolai, I don't need you dead.  I don't know what I got to say to get it through your dopey head."  (I approximated dopey in Serbian, hoping it was bad enough.)

"Well, you'll excuse my temperament, Gospodin Carter, but you'll appreciate that I have many men that seek to put me down like a dog."

"If you appreciate that I have the same problems, brother."  He chuckled.  By the sight of it, I could see that he was noticeably weaker in the day.  "Speaking of it, Nikolai, isn't traveling like this dangerous for both of us?"  It dawned on me, as I tend to forget it at times: I was a black man with a vampire in the middle of 1330 Serbia.  He shook his head to the negative, "Don't worry, this road is not often traveled.  But you may simply say that you are either my slave or a paid warrior from Nubia."

"Uh-uh, that ain't going to happen.  I'm a prince or some shit.  Prince of Nubia."

"Unlikely, and," he stopped his horse long enough to punctuate his point, "next time I suggest that you wear something a little more becoming of a prince.  At least a landowner of some sort."

He had me there, then he quickly countered, "I will guess that you haven't done this very long, Carter."  Ding.  I explained to him that he was right: I created HOVA not more than three weeks ago.  I was trying to get used to this. I expected to have a little insight into history, not have to protect it like it was my full time job.  I had to say: I did love being able to make that statement to myself.

"Tell me, Carter, how did you come by  this magical object?"  I sidled up closer to him, "How about 'made'?"  He smiled, "It's not that I don't believe you could make such an object, but magic is much easier to believe in these times.  I'm sure in your time, these magical devices are commonplace."

"Not likely.  Not like this."

I explained further, since we had the time.  The drab winter of the Serbian countryside only had squat, bare trees.  Plenty of dark mud.  I could hear the sounds of a few birds, a stream was nearby.

...

1999.

I've always kept the fact that I had dual degrees to myself.  After all, I was Jay-Z: my image was  maintaining excellence in hip-hop.  If it wasn't rap, it would've been a professor of the atom, perhaps a propulsion scientist, had things gone differently.  I have received an MS in Applied Mech from UPenn.  I received my other MS from CIT in Astrophysics.  Once Life/Times came out, I didn't have any more time to devote to get my doctorate.  But I will get my black ass over to Princeton when all of this nonsense clears up.  Dr. Shawn Carter: someday.

A side project of mine, in anticipation of a doctorate, was the prototype of the Horary Obverse/Variance Assemblage.  It took about 230 hours to even get to the paper version of it.  Computer modeling took three times that.  And the same time on the physical build-out.

The monies from In My Lifetime went into getting the largest aggregate of the element, chrithyit.  It was discovered, in a 1988 experiment at Princeton, that even a minuscule amount bent time/space by a degree of .0000001.  And that's where, surprisingly, they ended the experiment.  But not for me.  

Taking about 20 grams of the substance, and running a mixture of five other common elements, all crafted into a small fob (a railman's watch for those that don't know, now you know), I increased the efficiency of the outlay by a tremendously ridiculous factor.  A factor of which could transport a 220-pound male to a time (not a place) not going further back than 1111.35 years.  BUT, I could hop from that point in either direction by that amount.  There were dangers, since it was not a spatial device.  If you didn't do some historical research, you can end up in the middle of the ocean, or, worse yet, in the middle of a mountain.

But it did work, that was key.  I built the device as non-electrical, since I knew that was going to be the first limitation, as I had read too many pulp novels when I was a kid.  I had plenty of cautionary tales, ranging from Twilight Zone to Alfred Hitchcock Presents.  It's overall simplistic look belied its design.  I created a time piece that, although comfortably fitted to one's hand, required a precise and complex set of movements along its dials, jewels and triggers to behave correctly.  I wouldn't want to try putting in the wrong information, as it could rip one's matter apart...but I really just designed it not to work in the wrong hands.  [And, as it became such a preoccupation, I blurted it out during one of my sets.  I had to cover, so HOVA became a rap handle.  'H' to the Horary, 'O' to the Ob-izzle.]

We didn't have time to go into my tests and how I eventually stumbled on the quagmire of sloppiness that exists out in the continuum.  Its the reason I find myself in this mess that I probably shouldn't have uncovered to begin with.  If I didn't love the challenge so much.

...

The basics of my story were lost on the vampire.  He slouched forward, as the noon-day sun occasionally broke through the clouds.  Moisture pooled around Nikolai's jacket where the hottest parts of the sunlight hit.  It appeared to be the serum of his blood.  If he had blood.  Perhaps his veins only ran serum.  That shit looked painful.

As we rounded a bend, I could see the spires of a castle in the distance.  "This is where we must part, to avoid suspicion," he struggled, "I'll go on ahead and my attendants will meet me soon.  You will need to give me the horse and work your way around to the north-western side of the castle."  I made an effort to make a lay of the land as he described it.

As I clambered up from the road into the taller trees that lay at the base of the keep, I realized that Nick hadn't eaten.  I interrupted his meal: I'm sure of it.  I don't know what he expected to bring in that night, we didn't pass a single person on the way here.  I felt my own neck, just for a second.  Well, it wasn't me.  It was then I heard the sudden and terrible cry of one of the horses startled the silence of the bare forest.  The sound died just quickly as it came.  Practical man, this Nikolai.  [So practical that his little feast also served as a diversion.  Vampiric guards had to have had their eyes trained on the forest below.  I'm sure it bought me time to find better cover as I got closer to the foot of the mountain.]

It took about a half-hour to get to the north-west corner of the cliff base.  I lost sight of the keep.  I learned from Louis Joillet to take a breather and close one's eyes - looking at the world in a fresh way.  By doing so, I was able to keep my bearing.  Within an hour, I closed in on the lighted side of the valley.

Making a few holes in the break, like a rabbit would, I had to get on my hands and knees to come to the other side of a large wall of brambles.  On the other side I was able to stand.  I could clearly see the corner of the castle that he pointed out, it had a small red coronet that was better positioned for viewing.  It allowed for some secrecy - no one in the castle was able to look down on me.

I turned to rest, but found that I stood at the top of a small gully, of which were filled several feet high with the vampiric prey of Uros Dusan and his brethren.  The bodies of hundreds were piled high, in a stale river, in varying states of decomposition.  This would freeze over in winter months.  I put my back to the wall and put the shades away - I realized that I put myself into what any hood rat would have seen as an easy trap.

...